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Google Wave and Wikimedia projects

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saintonge at telus

Jun 3, 2009, 10:22 AM

Post #76 of 78 (547 views)
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Re: Google Wave and Wikimedia projects [In reply to]

Milos Rancic wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:44 PM, Lars Aronsson <lars [at] aronsson> wrote:
>
>> It says that as long as we follow Google's protocol standard, they
>> won't sue us for infringing on their patents ("patents necessarily
>> infringed by implementation of this specification"). Oh, how very
>> generous. But what if we want to implement some of their features
>> in MediaWiki without following their protocol? That is where we
>> should be worried. What exactly is it that they have patented?
>>
> What if we want to implement any of patented features in MediaWiki?
>
> BTW, I am really skeptical about the idea that one large Internet
> company sues Wikimedia or MediaWiki developers for their patents. It
> would be a really bad PR for them.

The history of lawsuits often shows that protecting vested interests is
more important than PR, and that PR departments devote themselves more
to building justifications for lawsuits. In the last few years the
recording and movie industries have appeared quite foolish in their
prosecutions of those who share music and films. Even when they win in
court they inspire others to seek ways to work around the obstacles.

Ec

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millosh at gmail

Jun 4, 2009, 7:39 AM

Post #77 of 78 (532 views)
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Re: Google Wave and Wikimedia projects [In reply to]

On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 7:22 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge [at] telus> wrote:
> Milos Rancic wrote:
>> BTW, I am really skeptical about the idea that one large Internet
>> company sues Wikimedia or MediaWiki developers for their patents. It
>> would be a really bad PR for them.
>
> The history of lawsuits often shows that protecting vested interests is
> more important than PR, and that PR departments devote themselves more
> to building justifications for lawsuits. In the last few years the
> recording and movie industries have appeared quite foolish in their
> prosecutions of those who share music and films. Even when they win in
> court they inspire others to seek ways to work around the obstacles.

I mentioned "Internet company", not "a company". I really don't think
that Google, Facebook or Amazon are so stupid to sue WMF or anything
strongly connected with WMF because their business is strongly
connected to the perception of their behavior (by Internet users). I
don't think that Microsoft would do that and I don't believe that
Apple has suicidal intentions (even they have problems with some parts
of free culture movement).

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wikimail at inbox

Jun 4, 2009, 9:19 AM

Post #78 of 78 (531 views)
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Re: Google Wave and Wikimedia projects [In reply to]

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 10:39 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh [at] gmail> wrote:

> I really don't think
> that Google, Facebook or Amazon are so stupid to sue WMF or anything
> strongly connected with WMF because their business is strongly
> connected to the perception of their behavior (by Internet users).

They think it is, anyway. At least, Google ("don't be evil") and Facebook
("let's let everyone vote on our policies") do. I don't know about Amazon.

Whether or not it actually is, I'm not so sure. Isn't your behavior more
important to your business than the perception of your behavior? Maybe not
when it comes to Internet companies - that would explain a lot, anyway.

> I don't think that Microsoft would do that

Microsoft is actually an excellent example of the fact that popular
perceptions of a company's behavior are not very important. But then,
they're not an Internet company.
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